I Pledge Allegiance to the Red Carpet

Have any plans for moviegoing this weekend? I regret to inform that there isn't much new of note to choose from unless you hit the theaters that show limited releases. Though the Divergent Series has performed respectably at the box office it never remotely reached what it was going for: being the new Hunger Games in terms of loot and broad cultural reach. And interest does seem to be dwindling. The super unwieldy title of the third effort is The Divergent Series: Allegiant and it's sometimes called Allegiant - Part 1 (2016) -- at least according to IMDb. Strangely the fourth film is not called Part 2 but The Divergent Series: Ascendance. So perhaps even the studio has lost enough interest that no one is in charge of the details.

Anyway this is just an excuse to show photos from the handsome red carpet. The headliners Shailene Woodley and Theo James dressed like they were attending a funeral (perhaps they're in mourning that they still have to film another one?) so it was up to the supporting cast to bring the glitz.  

Naomi Watts (top left) provided some mature razzle dazzle (she loves silver, huh?) and here's how the young men looked: 

From left to right: Miles Teller (Whiplash), Keiynan Lonsdale (The Flash), Jonny Weston (Chasing Mavericks), Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars) and Joseph David-Jones (Legends of Tomorrow). Just as I was thinking "this cast looks very CW generic" I realized that it was no coincidence since two of them are currently in CW superhero shows. 

Which suit do you like best and what is happening with Ansel's collar? It's like he's wearing a mini towel after doing some cardio.

Review: Fantastic [sic] Four

Tim here. The best and maybe the only compliment I can pay to the new Fantastic Four, the third unsuccessful attempt at bringing the oldest of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's creations at Marvel Comics to the big screen, is that it's not obviously the worst one yet. Its insipidities, and it is very insipid, aren't inherently worse than those of the ghastly 2005 big-budget version. That film heralded the end of the "brightly colored larks that are wholly insubstantial but also not much fun" era of comic book movies; time alone will tell if its 2015 sibling will similarly ring down the curtains on the "ludicrously dark and serious-minded exercises in bitterness and misery" era, though I think we should be hopeful.

How much of the film's misery and internal confusion is due to the awkwardly visible fencing match between director Josh Trank and the executives at 20th Century Fox is beyond our ability to say for certain. It does feel like a movie that wants to be anything other than what it is. There were rumors that Trank was hoping to make PG-13, summer-friendly body horror, and there are vestigial traces of that conception; it would have been better for the film to have gone all the way, for at least then the bleakness of tone would have felt like it had some actual purpose. [More...] 

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Miles Teller?

I don't know quite what to make of the controversy over Miles Teller's Esquire interview other than to say "congratulations, Esquire for getting people talking."

Love the snarky tagline on the cover...

Newman? Brando? Mitchum? Nah, It's Miles Teller

Mr Teller thinks the profile is misrepresenting and his famous friends are mad about it. And yet it feels accurate based on past public douchiness. Defensive fans think the author Anne Peele is the dickish one. And, well, it does feel accurate that she went into this an angle. On the other hand maybe she came up with that angle after being presented with the evidence? Celebrity profiles aren't easy to write. I've had to rescue two interview / profiles in the past where the celebrity was not making it easy to make them look good (no I'm not sharing the names) and I'm proud of the way both pieces turned out but it might have been easier to go with a " ____ is kind of a jerk" angle.

Still, I don't think this is as damning as others do and it's a good juicy read (especially the part about getting dumped from Damien Chazelle's Whiplash follow up La La Land). And I don't think it's helping Miles to be upset about it. Stars rarely come off well when bitching about how the press presents them (think Russell Crowe / Christian Bale). A lot of male stars are, in fact, rewarded for cocky arrogance and bro personas. He's hardly an original in this regard so this won't turn people off of his talent.

So... POP QUIZ POLL

Miles Teller is...

a dick...

dickish... but gimme

a "great guy". this is misrepresenting!

great in Rabbit Hole / Whiplash. Who cares what he's like off screen

... WHO?

Poll Maker

Tweets o' th --Whew... That Week Is Over!

That was... a week, wasn't it? I mean to post this yesterday oops.  It began with the Oscars and then Madonna falling backwards downstairs onstage (I was so mad at the internet for only posting the fall and not the kickass performance that surely followed... why pretend failure when the story is actually a triumph of professionalism?) I skipped the whole white/gold blue/black dress debate online because every image seemed to be color manipulated (I saw both) so i didn't understand the fuss. Something happened with llamas that I missed. Anyway, some tweets I enjoyed this week...  

Still Alice is going to outgross Foxcatcher and Whiplash domestically. Doubt it ends the staleness of the 'nobody's seen it' jokes.

— Gumsandal Detective (@juvie_cinephile) February 28, 2015

I've seen Miles Teller in three movies. He's been in a terrible car accident in every single one. And in real life. That's... interesting?

— Sebastian Nebel (@SebastianNebel) February 24, 2015

Madonna, House of Cards, the Oscars, and The Avengers follow... 

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Beauty vs Beast: Little Drummer Bot

Howdy folks it's Jason from MNPP here, pulling myself out of the snow-heap I was buried under last week to drum up a new round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series, in which we ask you to pick sides between good and evil, movie-style. By this time next week the 87th Academy Awards will have come and gone in an explosion of gold-dust and gowns, so I figure I'll get one more contender in here before it's too late... and what better place to celebrate Oscar Season than with the Best Picture nominee that's all about the blood and the sweat and the brutality that goes into slicing and dicing art down to ecstatic perfection? Replace Miles Teller's drumsticks with little golden men and replace JK Simmons with, well, let's say Harvey Weinstein cuz you know why not, and you get the idea. Enter Whiplash, where losers need not apply.

poll by twiigs.com

You've got one week to pick your picks, and please do furiously hit up the comments, pounding your opinions yay or nay onto your keyboard so hard your fingers draw blood. Although I probably shouldn't say please? Fletcher doesn't like it if I say please.

PREVIOUSLY I go away for one week and before we know it Nathaniel's got us drowning in sexy gingers - he can't help himself! (And we're not complaining!) Last week's competition faced-off Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne two times over, and because we all love them both we were kind enough to spread the wealth - as the mother-son-lovers in Savage Grace it was Juli who came out on top, but it was Eddie and his Jupiter Ascending abs that dominated her goth stab in the dark in The Seventh Son. Said Nika of the latter, winning my heart with pure logic:

"I hated Eddie's performance in Jupiter Ascending, but, boy, he is shirtless. I can't resist."